


detours

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: 1st chapter is gen, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Multi, Ten Years Later, Very Small Children Ask Very Important Questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-01 17:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: Six, sixteen, twenty-six. Sometimes, it's just nice to have a reminder of how far they've come- even if it does come in the form of cryptic children that may or may not be real.





	1. Yusaku

**Author's Note:**

> Vrains Week Day 4- Becoming an Adult
> 
> This was... supposed to be totally gen but since I finished this one ahead of time I had my beta skim over it real fast and they kinda saw it as implied ship so? I figured hey why not go all the way with it

There was a kid, standing lost in the middle of the street. The crowd at this particular crossing was always thick; the pleasant weather on a long summer weekend did nothing to help the streams of people crossing every which way as the traffic hummed softly at their outskirts. The air was a heavy press of humid summer that the world moved determinedly against- but at the center of it all stood a solitary child, lost in the black asphalt of the intersection. A small red balloon was tied around their wrist, and they tugged nervously at the string, eyes gazing up into the impassive faces of strangers that spared them no notice.

But in the middle of the crosswalk, halfway through the step that would take him though- he stopped.

Yusaku knew this kid.

The light would stay green a while longer; Yusaku took quick steps towards the boy who shrugged away at his approach. He asked, voice light, trying not to put on airs- children could always see through them faster than adults thought, he reminded himself. He couldn’t be so quick to forget.

“Are you lost?”

The kid stared up at him with bright green eyes and a terribly brave expression. He was clearly trying not to crumble; Yusaku knew that feeling all too well.

“I’m not supposed to go with strangers,” the boy said, balling his fists into the fabric of his pants to keep from reaching out.

_Smart kid,_ Yusaku thought, wishing that advice had ever done him any good. The crowd around them was thinning out as the walk signal began to flash; people’s paces went in one step from lackadaisical to brisk. They were still in the very middle of the intersection, one foot on either side of the zebra crossing.

“Well,” said Yusaku, “you can’t stand here. Can you at least come with me to the sidewalk?”

The boy considered this, looking at the traffic creeping slowly forwards as the pedestrians thinned out, at the flashing green signs, then nodded.

“Okay,” Yusaku said, “but we have to hurry. I’ll race you there?”

He’d scarcely had time to point before the boy had scurried off, weaving between the legs of the final few stragglers and joggers blatantly disregarding the changing signals. Yusaku huffed out an exasperated breath and followed at a brisk walk not quite a jog. He wouldn’t catch up to the kid, and it didn’t matter. By the time he stepped foot on the sidewalk the cars were closing in impatient and the kid was rolling on the balls of his feet, excited at his minor victory.

“You’re pretty fast,” Yusaku said, and the boy grinned up at him bright.

“Really?”

Yusaku nodded, then pointed up at the ice cream stand taking up the corner space. “Yeah. Here, I’ll buy you something for winning. A prize.”

“I’m not supposed to take food from strangers,” said the boy, smile faltering on his face as he pinched it up, clearly searching for a sign he could trust Yusaku at all. Again Yusaku wished that advice had ever done him good- but he admired the kid’s resolve, at least. He glanced up at the menu, then pulled a few loose coins from his pocket.

“Then how about this. I’ll hand you the coins, and you can order whatever you want. That’s fine, right?”

The boy considered it a moment, but the bribe had won him over. He nodded enthusiastically.

“What’s your favorite flavor?” Yusaku asked, then shook his head. “Let me guess. Chocolate.”

“How did you know?” The boy glanced up at him suddenly, eyes wide and all but sparkling. He was impossibly excited- though chocolate was a pretty safe guess, as far as they went. He could have said sweet potato, or super mint, or any of the stranger options on the menu.

Yusaku huffed, quietly amused. “Just a lucky guess.”

The boy held out his hands for the coins, palms upturned and eyes brimming with anticipation for Yusaku’s half of the promise. The red balloon on his wrist bobbed with the motion, hovering a moment before shooting upwards on the loose string. Yusaku dropped the coins in them and shepherded him up to the counter, where the boy stood on tiptoe to drop the coins in the tray, chirping out his order with simple excitement.

Yusaku waited a moment as the cashier’s gaze slipped up to him. His wallet was still in his hand, and there was no reason not to. Atop the boy’s coins he dropped a few of his own. The boy looked up at him, a little surprised, but Yusaku just shrugged. It had been a while since he’d sat outside eating sweets; if he was going to watch over this kid for a while, he might as well indulge himself.

It only took a few moments for their orders to be delivered, two cones with soft serve swirled up high. As promised, Yusaku let the boy reach over the counter himself to take it with considerably more effort than it took him. Still, it made the young woman behind the counter smile; without realizing it, Yusaku found himself smiling too.

“Should we go sit down somewhere? There’s a park just around the corner.” Yusaku waved his ice cream towards it, not missing the way the kid’s eyes went wide as it wobbled but didn’t fall.

“Okay,” the boy said, and Yusaku shook his head.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to go places with strangers?”

“It’s okay,” said the boy, “because you’re a good person.”

_I don’t think you should decide that about people so quickly,_ Yusaku wanted to say- but that would make him a hypocrite of the worst kind.

The boy’s hand tentatively reached up for his. Yusaku took it, held it tight. A reassurance that he wouldn’t get lost again, not so long as Yusaku was with him. They wandered over towards the park, deserted with the late hour. The sign posted near the bushes at its entrance proclaimed that it closed at dusk, but Yusaku shuffled the boy inside anyway, hoping he was too concentrated on his melting ice cream to bother reading the sign.

He hadn’t spent the better part of his teens breaking various laws in roundabout ways only to be stopped now by a signpost, of all things. Together they wandered over towards the swings, and Yusaku thought that if anyone saw, they probably made quite the pair- the kid with chocolate ice cream melting down his fingers and the man choosing to avoid that problem by biting off far too much at once.

Yusaku held the boy’s ice cream obligingly as he leaped up onto one of the swings, passing it back as he sat down on the one beside it, the two of them silent a moment as they finished off their sweets. The boy searched for a napkin they hadn’t taken as he finished his, gaze eventually landing on Yusaku, asking him to take responsibility. Yusaku hadn’t thought to take a napkin, but he reached into his pants pocket- stuffed in there was a handkerchief he’d taken by accident from the counter that morning.

It was a delicate thing, and definitely didn’t belong to him- but he’d apologize later. For now, he handed it over to the kid, who accepted it gratefully and cleaned the melted drops of ice cream off his hands before handing it back and grabbing the chains supporting the swing. “Thank you. For the ice cream, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yusaku said, refolding the handkerchief so the least amount of ice cream stuck out before shoving it back in his pocket.

“I want to hurry and grow up,” the boy said, changing topics seamlessly as he kicked his feet on the swing, toes just barely brushing against the gravel down below. Yusaku leaned forwards to look at him, pushing himself slightly, dress shoes digging into ground and dusting the soles in white.

“Why?” he asked, and the boy nervously ran his thumbs over the chain links clenched tight in each palm.

“Because then I don’t have to be scared when I get lost. Because adults don’t worry about things like that. They can be calm and go get ice cream while they wait and are always prepared for stuff. Being an adult is better.”

“It’s not so easy,” Yusaku replied, thinking of all the people he’d watch get hurt stumbling on their way here- to say nothing of himself.

The boy squinted up at him and said, bluntly- “You’re lying.”

Yusaku shook his head with a little exasperation he didn’t want to show. “I’m not. You shouldn’t hurry to grow up. It might seem nice to be an adult, but you get hurt a lot along the way. You might get hurt without knowing why. You might fail at things you try your best at. And sometimes the people you love might fight with you.”

“I don’t want that,” interrupted his childhood self, eyes wide and watering with an honestness that made old wounds ache with older pains.

“I don’t want that either,” Yusaku replied, and meant it as much as he’d meant anything in his life.

If there were other worlds- if the child he saw before him wasn’t the him of the past, lost to one of the few memories that he’d never recover- if there was such a thing as parallel timelines or branches or any such thing as a world where the Lost Incident had never made him a victim-

Then he’d hope with all his heart that this kid was luckier than him.

“But you know what?” he asked, and the boy shook his head. Yusaku leaned over towards him and rested a hand softly atop the kid’s head, ruffled his hair softly in a way that had him pouting, trying weakly to bat away Yusaku’s hand. “You’ll be fine. I promise. You won’t have to cry. If you’re hurting, then someone will save you.”

Yusaku didn’t mention that ultimately, that person might be himself. But the boy replied, eyes sparkling- “Someone like you?”

Yusaku huffed- now wasn’t that a little too accurate- but nodded, and the kid smiled at him, nodded enthusiastically. “Good. Because you seem really strong.”

With a shake of his head, Yusaku pulled back his hand and said- “Promise me you’ll enjoy being a kid? And that you’ll make as good memories as you can before you grow up?”

The boy held out his pinky finger in invitation, and Yusaku reached over to link his with the boy’s. His childhood self said, looking up at Yusaku with no traces of hesitation left- “I promise.”

Yusaku blinked- and then the boy was gone, the warmth of their linked fingers already fading.

But he hadn’t been a hallucination, of that much Yusaku was sure. Because before his eyes a lonely red balloon began to float away, caught by a sudden gust of wind and dragged up towards the clouds, whisked away with its owner.

Yusaku straightened up from the swing and watched it go for a while, wishing that kid all the best- and, as it grew impossibly small in his sights, turned back towards the road.

Time to go home.


	2. Spectre & Aoi

There was a familiar face waiting for her when she stepped outside, squinting her eyes against the last of the setting sun and wishing she’d brought sunglasses- it would have hid her expression much better when she glared mildly at her cold reception.

“Ah. If it isn’t SOL’s poster child of an idol. Aren’t you getting a bit old to be doing that sort of work?”

“And shouldn’t you have been promoted _once_ since you started working? Upstart company or not, it doesn’t seem like you’ve been making any progress in on us,” Aoi returned, waving a hand back towards SOL, though she masked it with a few fingers run through her hair. She’d been growing it out again as of late, and though she didn’t think she’d ever have it quite as long as she did when she was little, it was nice to have it falling in gentle waves around her shoulders again.

“I’m quite happy with my position, thank you,” Spectre returned, and Aoi sighed, shaking her head. The faux-tension between them broke, and though Spectre didn’t quite smile at her, his mock severity fell away into something pleasant.

“You’re early,” Aoi said, glancing down at her watch, which beamed the time up at her helpfully. Aoi frowned as the realization hit her.

“It’s more that you’re late,” Spectre said, and all Aoi could do was let out a breath and frown. She’d taken more time to finish her promotion in LINK VRAINS than she’d thought she had. More fans than expected had gathered for the opening of the new course; Aoi supposed she shouldn’t have insisted on meeting anyone who wanted to exchange a few words.

“We should go,” Spectre said, slipping his phone into his pocket and glancing down the street, towards the crowded crosswalk, as if demanding them to cease their flow, “or we’ll be late. I did make a reservation. If we don’t arrive within half an hour, they’ll cancel our dinner.”

Aoi nodded, and made to step off- but just as she did, something strange caught their attention. Laughter, young voices that didn’t belong on a street like this on the evenings, shouldn’t have rung so high over the low tones of salarymen on old phones and heads ducked, weaving around the crowd. Shouldn’t have been chanting such nostalgic words back and forth like a game.

Aoi’s head snapped towards the sound, the sight of two small children disappearing into the crowd of black suits just ahead of them.

“Were those..?” Spectre began, but Aoi didn’t need to hear the rest of his sentence.

“Quick,” Aoi said, cutting fast across the crosswalk as the light began to flash, warning them of the change to red. They were only halfway across when the flickering light blared at them red, but Aoi hardly cared- the cars would wait, but the children she’d caught sight of were moving fast down the sidewalk on the other side.

Aoi danced fast out of the way as a car about to turn blared its horn at her, Spectre probably not bothering to so much as even wave a hand in apology behind her as he followed. They paused just a moment on the other side of the street, having lost the children in the business rush.

“We never met as children,” Spectre said, stating the obvious beside her. If they’d met as children, then perhaps they’d have spared themselves the trouble of the fighting and the misunderstandings and the hardship. But if they’d done that, Aoi thought, then who knows where they’d have ended up.

“We didn’t,” Aoi agreed, then turned her head, stepping back and scanning through the crowd for any sight of the two children, any sound of their laughing voices reciting familiar words. After a moment she caught a glimpse of white- a dress, hair on a head as it slipped away, down into an alley between two buildings- and set after it, leaving Spectre again to follow.

Even from behind Aoi could recognize herself well; the _her_ that had cried so many tears on Akira’s lap and clung so desperately to whatever strength presented to her. The children were far away, but there was no child that young that could outrun a full-grown adult, heels be damned- not when Aoi needed answers, and needed them _now._

“Stop,” she called out to them, and at the very end of another indistinct alley did the children finally oblige. Aoi skidded to a stop, Spectre only marginally more graceful beside her, the two of them heaving in heavy breaths in contrast to the children who didn’t seem so much as winded.  

The children turned on their heels to look back at them, dropping their hands and asking in unison- “Did you find it?”

Aoi blinked, unsure of what they could be referring to; at her side Spectre was doing similar. Had they been searching for something? Aoi ran briefly through the events of the day, the week, the month, the storybook that her younger self still clutched tight in her free hand- but couldn’t quite grasp what the children meant. Aoi asked, for once the first to regain her voice, “What do you mean?”

Before them the two children exchanged quick glances, giggling soft under their breath as if sharing a secret. They said in unison-

“A place to belong.”

“Happiness!”

And giggling again, grins spread wide on their faces, the children turned and again ran, leaving the speechless adults in their wake.

“Wait,” Aoi called out after them, but as always, the children paid them no mind. Instead they wove them through alleys and streets and through green light after green light, leaping across the crosswalks with a speed that no children should have possessed.

And it was at a bustling crosswalk that Aoi chased after the children as the light began to flash, as she stepped out onto the white of the zebra crossing with a call for them to wait-

Spectre reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back sharp onto the sidewalk as the light changed and a car swept through the street before her, horn blaring as it just narrowly missed her.

“Be careful,” Spectre warmed, but beneath the sharpness of his warning there was a warm flash of worry. A careful demand that she keep from hurting herself, learned long after a year and a decade and all the interactions in-between.

“But the children,” Aoi protested, staring out into the rush of cars thrown into motion, hoping she’d see them on the island in the middle- but there was no one. Aoi blinked, but still was the street devoid of life save the bustling traffic.

“They’re gone,” Spectre said, and finally dropped her wrist, convinced that she wasn’t going to run out into the road without looking for the sake of strange children that had vanished.

Aoi blinked a few more times, glancing around the far side, trying to see if they hadn’t jumped, somehow, like fragments of a daydream run loose- but still there was nothing. No matter which way she looked, Spectre was right. The children had disappeared, leaving their future selves confused in their wake.

Or no, Aoi thought, perhaps not. As Spectre had said- they’d never met as children. They couldn’t be their past selves, and they couldn’t be ghosts or a hallucination, given Spectre had seen them too- but then what were they left with?

She asked, turning slow back to Spectre, “Do you think they were real?”

“I imagine we’ll never know,” was Spectre’s only reply. He glanced away from her, towards the park at their backs, and continued- “Besides. I think we have more pressing matters to attend to.“

Aoi followed his line of sight, and almost shook her head incredulously at what she saw. There, in the center of the empty park stood Yusaku with gaze turned to the sky. When Aoi went to try and follow his gaze, all she saw was a tiny red speck from what must have been a balloon, almost indistinct against the soft color of the sunset sky.

By unspoken agreement she and Spectre slipped inside the park, casually ignoring all the warnings that said they couldn’t, coming up short beside Yusaku, who acknowledged them with a brief nod as the balloon was finally lost amongst the sunset sky.

“I thought you were going to meet us at the restaurant?” Aoi asked, to which Yusaku’s eyes went wide for half a second before he schooled his expression back down into practiced nonchalance. Aoi sighed. _Of course_ he’d forgotten their plans. What he was doing in the middle of a deserted park, though, Aoi had no idea.

“I got a little distracted.”

“Obviously,” Spectre replied, and Aoi didn’t need to be looking at him to know he was rolling his eyes.

“If I explained it, I don’t think you’d believe me,” Yusaku said. At her side, Spectre let out a flat chuckle.

“We may believe more than you think,” he said, and Aoi nodded her agreement. She didn’t know what exactly would have made Yusaku stand alone in the middle of a park, but she had a nagging suspicion that it might have had something to do with a familiar face from his past. But right now, it didn’t matter.

“Anyway,” Aoi said, shaking her head and checking her watch, “should we go? Our dinner reservations are… now.”

“Oh,” Yusaku said, glancing away from them, into the middle distance a moment, “I just ate ice cream, actually.”

“Why in the _world_ would you have done that?”

Yusaku didn’t quite laugh, though the little huff that left him was definitely self-conscious. “Like I said. It’s a weird story.”

Aoi just sighed, wondering when exactly she’d become their keeper. “It can’t be any stranger than ours. So come on. We can talk over dinner?”

Spectre and Yusaku exchanged a glance, then nodded- they’d be late, but the restaurant was close. They’d make it if they hurried. Mismatched as they might have been, with destination set in their eyes, gravel dust white against their dark dress shoes, and a particularly strange bit of catching up to do, the three of them set off.


End file.
